Thirteen months ago OCZ announced its intention to acquire Indilinx, the SSD controller maker that gave Intel its first taste of competition in the consumer market in 2009. Eight months later, OCZ launched its first post-acquisition SSD based on Indilinx silicon. Today, just five months after the launch of the Octane, OCZ is officially releasing the Vertex 4 – based on its Indilinx Everest 2 silicon. In less than a year, OCZ has brought to market more Indilinx powered controllers than Indilinx did in the previous three years. It's rare that you see the fruits of acquisition so quickly, but if there's anything OCZ's CEO Ryan Petersen is good at it's pushing for an aggressive schedule.

Rather than call this drive the Octane 2, OCZ went with Vertex 4, indicating its rightful place at the top of OCZ's SSD lineup. The implications run even deeper. It marks the first time in two years that a Vertex drive will ship without a SandForce controller inside. Make no mistake, while Octane was a shot across SandForce's bow, Vertex 4 means war. While OCZ continues to ship tons of SandForce controllers, the future for the company is Indilinx. The Vertex 4 is just the beginning. OCZ will continue to ship Vertex 3 in parallel, and should a future SandForce controller make competitive sense to use OCZ will definitely consider it, but the intention is to build the fastest silicon internally and use it as much as possible.

The dramatic departure in naming also embodies just how different Everest 2 is from the original Everest controller. OCZ claims there's minimal shared code between the Octane and Vertex 4 firmware, and the two drives perform very differently. Write amplification was always a concern with the Octane - it is no longer a major issue with the Vertex 4. OCZ and its Indilinx team have reduced write amplification to roughly the levels of Intel's controllers:

Indeed write performance is improved significantly as a result. A look at the spec sheet gives us the first indication of what's to come:

OCZ SSD Comparison

OCZ Vertex 4

OCZ Vertex 3

OCZ Octane

OCZ Vertex 2

Current NAND

25nm IMFT MLC

25nm IMFT MLC

25nm IMFT MLC

25nm IMFT MLC

Capacities

128, 256, 512GB

60, 90, 120, 240, 480GB

128, 256, 512GB, 1TB

60, 120, 240GB

Controller

Indilinx Everest 2

SF-2281

Indilinx Everest

SF-1221

Max Seq Read

535 MB/s

550 MB/s

480 MB/s

285 MB/s

Max Seq Write

475 MB/s

500 MB/s

330 MB/s

275 MB/s

Max Random Read

95K IOPS

60K IOPS

26K IOPS

-

Max Random Write

85K IOPS

85K IOPS

35K IOPS

50K IOPS

AES-256 Encryption

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Regardless of the nature of the data (compressible or incompressible), the Everest 2 powered Vertex 4 promises better random write performance than any other consumer SSD on the market today. And it delivers:

Random write speed is nothing short of incredible. OCZ is able to equal SandForce's write speed on highly compressible data without resorting to any sort of data compression. This is a purely algorithmic advantage. While the original Everest was a work in progress by the time OCZ acquired the company, Everest 2 is the first Indilinx project OCZ had complete control over. Apparently OCZ's CEO, Ryan Petersen had a lot of his own input built into this design.

OCZ Vertex 4 Lineup

512GB

256GB

128GB

NAND Configuration

16 x 32GB 25nm Intel sync NAND

16 x 16GB 25nm Intel sync NAND

8 x 16GB 25nm Intel sync NAND

DRAM

2 x 512MB DDR3-800

2 x 512MB DDR3-800*

2 x 512MB DDR3-800*

Controller

Indilinx Everest 2

Indilinx Everest 2

Indilinx Everest 2

Max Seq Read

535 MB/s

535 MB/s

535 MB/s

Max Seq Write

475 MB/s

380 MB/s

200 MB/s

Max Random Read

95K IOPS

90K IOPS

90K IOPS

Max Random Write

85K IOPS

85K IOPS

85K IOPS

MSRP

$699

$349

$179

*Only 512MB of DDR3 will be used, future versions will ship with 2 x 256MB devices

The Vertex 4 will be available in three capacities initially – 128GB, 256GB and 512GB, with a 1TB version following. Drives should be available today but in very limited quantities, and likely only 128GB capacities at the start. MSRP is fairly competitive with other 6Gbps drives on the market today:

As some other sites have tested, it seems like the Vertex 4 is a completely different drive with the newer 1.4 firmware, and 1.5 added even more performance.

Has Anandtech considered revisiting this drive with a later firmware? I have much more faith in Anandtechs reviews on SSD's than others and would love to see this drive tested with the latest firmware.Reply

I posted the above matters to OCZ forum and got no solution from them after many email in and out in a week time. They want me to write an email to HP for help. They even deleted my reply and make the post like I did not reply their request or reply their mail. Furthermore, they blocked my post. They wanted me to send them a personal email instead of on the public forum.

"It's still a drive from OCZ, a company that has repeatedly and blatantly used its customer base as unpaid beta testers, and lambasted them when they dared to complain about it. No thank you. The fastest drive in the world is of no use to me if it's causing my computer to BSOD constantly. I'll be spending my money and that of my many clients on drives with proven track records for reliability and excellent customer service, both sadly lacking in OCZ products."

I will walk away from this OCZ unreliable SSD. Luckily I am able to return the drives and asked for refund instead of following their steps to do the beta tester in a week time.

Hi. When the drive goes into the GC mode ( standard mode ), does it mean that the drive will start to read and write its internal data ? If so, does it mean that the write lifetime of the cells will reduce ( write lifetime of the disk will be reduced every time it reorganize itself ) ? And if so, can we switch off this or install firmware that do not shorten the write lifetime of the disk ?Reply